


king of thieves

by dirgewithoutmusic



Category: Robin Hood (Traditional), Robin Hood - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/F, I Don't Even Know, Transhumanism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24552577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic
Summary: The first intrusion was the beeping— medical-grade, reassuring, insistent.It was familiar, like her heartbeat. That rushed in next, the pulse of blood pushing away the sheltering dark. Light filtered in through her eyelids, violet and soothing, for one long sustained breath, and then her entire left side erupted into one giant itch.Shit."Guess who got blown uppppp," crooned a staticky voice, and that was enough to place her. If she’d still been in Io General’s ICU, Will's voice with that same sing-song tone would be coming at her, sure, but from an uncomfortable plastic chair next to her and not from the neuro-comm embroidered into her synapses.--a F/F sci-fi Robin Hood retelling featuring defunct asteroid mines, grumpy cyborg assassins for hire, and fierce community-building for justice
Relationships: Maid Marian & Will Scarlet, Maid Marian/Robin Hood
Comments: 77
Kudos: 252





	1. Marian

_Once upon a time, there was a bandit king who lived inside a star._

—

The first intrusion was the beeping— medical-grade, reassuring, insistent. 

It was familiar, like her heartbeat. That rushed in next, the pulse of blood pushing away the sheltering dark. Light filtered in through her eyelids, violet and soothing, for one long sustained breath, and then her entire left side erupted into one giant itch.

_Shit._

<Guess who got blown _uppppp,_ > crooned a staticky voice, and that was enough to place her. If she’d still been in Io General’s ICU, Will's voice with that same sing-song tone would be coming at her, sure, but from an uncomfortable plastic chair next to her and not from the neuro-comm embroidered into her synapses.

<No idea; illuminate me,> Marian shot back, getting to work on prying her eyes open. The itch crawled from her abdominal skin down to her thighs, the regrowing skin giving her some idea of the scope of the damage.

“Oh, our little explorer is waking up,” said a voice that traveled over only air. Will shut up to listen better too. It was a skill he displayed on occasion.

“What happened?” Marian rasped.

<I remember the explosion,> Will said. <Do you not remember the explosion? Do you remember the danger signs, because I remember _yelling about the danger signs_.>

“There was an accident,” said the voice in the room— a warm, slow voice, doing its best not to frighten the damaged young woman in its sick bed— and Marian finally got her eyes open.

The walls curved around them, heavy with devices and blinking lights. Open cabinets hung on every rocky outcropping or hollow. Marian pushed herself up, one bare palm on the cold stone floor to the right of her, the other pressing down on the threadbare pallet. The same cold seeped up through its cotton and cardboard layers.

The man squatting in front of her smiled as quietly and carefully as his voice. His bare bald crown glinted deep brown in the glare and flash of the equipment lights. “You’re healing up well. We had to patch a bit of your liver weave, but you’ve got some sturdy implants in there. I’m Tuck.”

“Doctor Tuck?” she asked.

He grinned, big cheeks creasing further. “Close enough for these parts.” 

“Thank you.” Marian sat up, knowing Will could feel her muscles stretching and complaining, the same way she could feel the ghost of his body, slouched in a spinny chair back on Io. His long fingers danced a rhythm over the desktop. Hers played out the same melody against her thigh— her _bare_ thigh, under the thin blankets.

Marian sighed. “Um, my clothes?” she said.

“They didn’t make it,” Tuck said. He sat back, rising to his feet. “You were a bit of ugly, there, for awhile. But we’ve got a work suit here that should fit.”

A folded pair of fluorescent orange overalls sat neatly on the gouged stone floor. <Wall of shame,> Will said gleefully. <Wall of fashion shame.>

Marian reached for the overalls, casting a grimly thankful smile Tuck’s way. <Maybe it’ll knock your purple tutu off the list.>

Will’s offense was palpable, rolling metallically over Marian’s tongue. <My purple tutu belongs near nothing like _shame_. My tutu was a thing of beauty. I’m wearing it right now.>

Marian reached down the long, wavery bond between them to the sensation of sensible starched cotton pants, a zippered shirt, and a regulation jacket one size too big.

<Oh, shut up, I’m wearing it in my _soul_. In my heart, Mari, it’s purple tutus all the way down.>

“What were you doing in that mine shaft, anyway, young lady?” said Tuck. He slid a tray of instruments into a sterilizer. Its soft violet glow trickled around the bulk of him. “23G-L was shut down years ago, when its vein ran out.”

“I got lost,” Marian admitted, pulling on the dark cotton shirt that had been folded with the overalls. Those came next, as she tried to slither into them without exposing herself to cold air. You’d think that the chill might numb out the awful itch of recently and rapidly regrown skin, but Marian knew it just stoked the flames.

“Not from around here?” When he heard her rise to her feet with a stumble and a curse, he turned around to smile at her again. Marian didn’t like it. She smiled back, easy, grateful and young.

“No, just passing through.” Marian shoved herself to her feet.

Footsteps came down the corridor, skidding to a stop where the corrugated metallic hallway gave way to stone. The girl who came around the corner shoved her short hair back.

“Hey, is she— Alan said—” The girl caught sight of Marian standing, fiddling with the straps of her overalls, and burst into a grin. “You’re awake! I was worried I’d have to go before you woke up.”

Marian figured this was weird enough she could let her frustrated conclusion show. “Before I...? Who are you?”

Will’s line buzzed to life. <Robin Lock, second gen Chinese immigrant to the Belt, twenty-five— birthday three days after yours! No education after the eighth grade. Mail delivery clerk.>

Marian looked her over with more interest. Robin’s hands were tucked in the pockets of what must be her uniform, though it’d gone through so many rough washes the blue had faded to grey. The patch on her shoulder was faded too, but Marian thought she could just make out the peony that was this hub’s symbol. <So she sees most of this place. Interesting.>

<Isn’t it?> Will scrolled through Robin’s logged deliveries, smug.

Robin grinned at her. “I wanted to shake your hand and look you in the eye,” she explained. “I’ve rarely had the opportunity to meet someone idiotic enough to walk themself straight into old explosives in an abandoned mine.”

“I live to serve,” Marian said, offering a hand.

Her grin only widened. “Me, too,” she said, reaching out to shake enthusiastically. “I’m Robin. If you hadn’t been wearing an emergency evac suit, you’d have been floating roadkill.”

“What Robin’s trying to say is that you were very lucky that she heard the explosion and found you.”

“Oh, uh, thank you.” Marian took a closer look at Robin. “ _You_ dragged me out of there?”

“I used my mail sled,” Robin admitted. 

Marian glanced over at Tuck, who quickly gave her another smile. Those were starting to make her uncomfortable. Robin was grinning too, but it was sharper, interested, something Marian could work with. Tuck’s felt placating. Purple light played over the flesh his creasing cheek. “Where I am?” she asked. 

“Hodge Hub. You’ve been here almost three days.”

Marian reached for pockets that had perished with most of the skin on her abdomen. Her hands brushed over orange overall instead, rough and heavy. “Shit— I missed my ride.”

<We’ve got shuttles coming through the main hub at least once a day,> Will said. <You’ve got options, but the commander does want you back here for some R&R soon.>

<Can’t say no to mom.>

“Where you headed?” Robin stepped further into the room. “I got a package for you, Tuck,” she added, gesturing to the hovering sled she’d left in the hall outside. “Come help me grab it?”

“I’ll help,” Marian said quickly. “And— back to the main hub, hopefully.”

“You’re injured,” Robin protested.

“The doc patched me up nicely,” Marian promised, but Tuck bustled past her and Robin got in her way.

Robin stared up at her, considering. The hair on the top of her head flopped around, while the rest was buzzed. It looked in need of a new buzz, though-- fluffy to the point of scruffiness. “I can give you a ride,” Robin said. “I’ve got deliveries that way.”

“Thanks. I’ll take you up on that.”

Tuck came back in, the smile finally gone. “Rob, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Robin turned her grin on him, which seemed like a favorite way to win arguments. “You think she should stay here?” she asked. 

Tuck had at least thirty pounds on Robin-- and his was mostly muscle, whereas Robin had soft arms and a slight jiggle to her belly as she grinned at him and held in a laugh. “I just don’t think you’re the-- the appropriate person to get her there.”

Robin glanced over her shoulder at Marian, “I seem trustworthy to you, don’t I, miss?” 

“You sure seem something,” Marian said. “But I’d be glad of a ride.” 

<Maybe take a few detours on our way out of the area,> she added to Will. 

<Commander said for you to come straight home. We didn’t find them. Mission’s failed, M, and you’re hurt.>

<I’m healing.>

< _Because you were hurt._ >

“Robin,” said Tuck, trying to do something significant with his eyebrows. 

Robin waggled hers back and reached out for Marian’s hand, tugging her forward. “I’m sure. Don’t worry about me, doc.” 

Marian let her pull her forward, out onto the corrugated metal of the main walk and caught her breath. Her boots--they, at least, had survived, being good spacer equip--rung dully as she stepped forward from stone to metal. 

Robin slanted a glance her way, sorting through packages on her overloaded mail sled. “Not from the Belt, then.”

“I’ve been here a few weeks now, and I still feel like I’m going to fall off every time I’m outside.” The path led the way between pre-fab buildings and supplemented natural caves like the one they’d just left. Above it all, the fizzing gold dome of the hub’s shields dominated.

“Did they tell you about the gravity failing last month? Kids all zooming around, folks slow dancing upside down on the shield barrier.”

Outside the golden shields, asteroids floated past, turning slowly. Most were smaller than the one under their feet, encapsulated in the massive bubble of protective light. 

“Seems like losing gravity would cause more trouble than fun,” said Marian, following Robin and her sled down the path.

“The fun’s more fun to talk about,” Robin said.

“So what you’re saying is sometimes you do fall off.”

Robin pointed a finger at her. “But we’ve got the shields to catch us.”

Marian looked away from Robin, back at the fizzing sky. “I thought the shields were to keep detritus and other asteroids out, and to keep the air in.”

“Things can have more than one purpose.”

<This feels like a dead end, Marian.>

Marian shushed him stubbornly. <We know the bandits are invested in this hub, because when the gravity crashed, they came.>

<Or they were just nearby and wanted to help.>

<Fat chance.>

Will snorted into his coffee and Marian smiled.

“Last stop on this rock,” Robin said, waving at a big structure before yanking her sled in through its door. Inside was a wide open area, full of long tables and benches. She wasn’t sure of the hour, but it seemed like it wasn’t a mealtime, whenever it was. A cluster of pre-teens played cards in a back corner. “Much!” Robin called. “Much, you here? There you are, you heathen.”

Marian sidled closer to Robin’s sled while she greeted a short, portly white man with a bedazzled eyepatch. <I’m scanning, I’m scanning,> Will muttered. <If you could get in contact with one of the boxes…>

Robin appeared at her shoulder, the short man heading off through a back door. “Hey, don’t-- that’s heavy.” 

“You’re doing me a favor, let me help,” Marian said, reaching for a box.

Robin scowled at her. “You’re injured.”

“I’m healing.”

<Just flour in that one,> Will reported back. The energy of his scan prickled at her palms, pressed up against the package. <I’m getting— plant by-products, processed meats, some vitamin supplements… Seems like a basic grocery trip.>

Robin waved at Marian warningly. “You’re healing— so no unloading for you, miss. Doc would have my head.”

Marian stepped back from the sled, raising her hands innocently. “I thought Tuck said he wasn’t a doctor.”

Robin shrugged. “He’s the closest we’ve got. Is a doctor determined by a degree, or what they do?”

“I think the degree’s pretty helpful.”

“Tell that to your stitches.”

Marian tipped her head. “Point.”

“Speaking of stitches, I’m going to go unpack these. You sit down before you pull anything.” Robin pointed at her, then a low bench inside the building, before reaching for a last box.

Marian settled down, her regrown skin still itching beneath her overalls. The orange jumpsuit would have been bright against the drab metal bench except that every surface in the mess had been painted over. A field of wildflowers, magenta and teal, climbed one wall. Their petals were clearly made of little fingerprints. Marian trailed her fingertips over them, the little bumps of paint. <You ever wonder, Will, what it would be like to live a life like this? Small, peaceful?>

<Nope.>

The portly man that Robin had called Much sat down next to her with a creak of joints. “So, new on the rock?” 

Marian looked up quickly, trying to put a little more life into her face. She’d barely gone a quarter mile, but she was ready to curl back up in one of Tuck’s cots. Much’s eyepatch glinted in the bright lights. “Yeah, I was just asking Robin about your grav failure?" Marian waved a hand around the mess hall. It showed signs of use— stains, worn laminate, yellowed tiles— but no significant damage. “Doesn’t look too bad.”

Much snorted. “Maybe it’s not intuitive for a spacer— you’re a spacer, aren’t you? You walk like it— but we’re not built for anti-grav life. Nothing strapped down. Bits of conductive debris floating into machinery. We had a fire start over in third district, but we got to it before it could hit an oxygen tank. But we’ve had a lot of help putting it back together. Robin’s been— well.” Much smiled. “Robin’s been Robin.”

Marian glanced over at Robin, who was going back down the stairs of Much’s pantry, carrying a second stack of boxes stacked taller than her. “Positive? Peppy?”

“Helpful,” said Much. “She’s been organizing clean-up, running maintenance, bringing supplies in. She was here day-of, rescuing people and crying cats out of trees, marshalling the fire brigade.”

“And fighting off bandits?”

“Hm?”

Marian shrugged. “Gravity down, hub in chaos— seems like the kind of unrest they’d take advantage of.”

<Every report we’ve gotten said the bandits were _helping_ , not raiding,> Will pointed out.

<I know. Let’s see what he says.>

“You’ve got a bandit problem out here, don’t you?” Marian prompted.

Much shrugged. “The big trade ships do, sure-- the farm ships and supply ships coming from Earth, but we don’t have anything worth stealing here.”

<That 3D protein printer looks pretty worth stealing,> Will said, tugging Marian’s attention towards the large unit bolted into the wall.

<Hard to haul?> Marian suggested. <And not much use without fuel.>

“Not having too much fun without me?” Robin said, popping back up the stairs, breathless. Sweat beaded at the back of her shirt, sticking it down between her shoulder blades.

Marian leaned back on the table, which was white with pink and purple horse silhouettes painted by someone who had never seen a horse. “Much here’s been telling me you’re a hero.”

Robin stopped and made a face. “Much.”

“I’m an honest man,” said Much. “I cannot tell a lie.”

“You’re a nuisance.”

Much rose creakily to his feet, glancing Robin’s way. “Your new friend here wanted to know if you had to fight off any bandits, when the gravity went down.”

“With fisticuffs and bayonets,” Robin said, reaching out to snag Marian’s hand again. “C’mon, before Much tries to get you to taste something experimental.”

Marian let Robin drag her out the door while Much hollered in their wake, “I just like to know how Belt cuisine goes down on a spacer palette!”

They ran down the path, metal clanging and singing under their pounding feet, until Robin saw Marian was tiring. “Shit, I keep forgetting you’re still recovering. You present as very alright.”

“I am alright,” Marian gasped. She had a second pocket of oxygen stored behind her liver, for emergencies. She let her lungs gulp in air instead.

“Are you,” Robin said, leaning against the path railing, “a spacer? They get a lot on the main Belt hub, but less here. Much gets excited.” The asteroid spread out low behind her, with its unnerving steep curve to the horizon. Curving metal paths gleamed over its surface like rivers.

“That was him excited?” Marian said breathlessly.

“Ecstatically so, yes. So, are you?”

Marian started down the path again, Robin taking the lead. “You don’t see spacers when you deliver to the main hub?”

A smile slid onto Robin’s face. “I do. You’re jumpy enough but you don’t look offended enough about the grav. They always look like their knees and hips are in the middle of lodging a complaint. Bone nanites can only do so much, you know?”

“I’ve got a few of those myself,” Marian admitted. “Procedure when I was a kid. They do what they can.”

“Shit, really?”

“My immune system took offense to, uh, me,” Marian said, shrugging. “So a lot of me isn’t my original model anymore, let’s say.”

<I know what you’re doing,> Will said, sing-song.

<Sharing?>

<If you want someone to tell you a secret, you tell them a secret of yours, first. You think this girl has got secrets?>

“You talk about yourself like you’re some machine.”

“Isn’t the body a machine? You keep it fueled, you replace malfunctioning parts, you use it to achieve your ends.”

<She goes everywhere, on her job. She talks to everyone. If anyone has seen something of the bandits…>

“You give it a purpose,” Robin offered.

Marian laughed. “If you have to, I suppose.”

“You don’t have a purpose? You don’t like what you do, Marian?”

“It gets me out of the house,” Marian said.

“Seems like it gets you farther than that. You know, I’ve never left the Belt? Been to practically every rock in it, but never gone farther than that.” Robin paused, coming to a stop beside a bulbous speeder. She shoved her mail sled into an opening in its side, then thumped the hatch to open it. A step ladder led down into dim depths. “What do you do, anyway?”

Marian eyed her— young, clever, curious. Useful. “I— could we get in the ship?”

“Uh, sure. I mean— hatch is there.”

The ship’s air was tepid and warm, left closed up with idle machinery. Marian let it slide down her throat while her feet reached for the ladder’s descending rungs.

“What, is it a secret?” Robin hit a few things on the ships dash, in the dim standby lights, and then the hatch slid closed. The ship’s system woke up with a hum under Marian’s feet. The lights flicked on overhead, an orange glow that washed out Marian’s overalls.

“Can I trust you?”

<Oh, I love it when you do this.> Will cradled his coffee close and Marian felt the heat of the ceramic warm her palms.

<I love it when you shut up.>

<You really really don’t. Give her that look, yeah, that one.>

Marian tried not to let her irritation at Will overshadow the quiet, vulnerable anxiety she was trying to beam at Robin. “I— I’m in a bit of bind.”

Robin still craned over the dash, poking at lights and switches, chewing her bottom lip. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“I'm— an undercover safety inspector,”

Will snorted. <Oh I like that.>

<It’s not— completely inaccurate.>

<Oh yeah? Wouldn’t you say we’re normally _decreasing_ someone’s safety— not increasing it?>

<Not if we’re doing it right.>

<Oh, so, then, we haven't been doing it right so far?>

<Shut _up_ , Will.>

“I’m here to investigate failures like the grav… issue.”

Robin sat down in front of the controls, backwards so she could face Marian. “A safety inspector? From the company? And what happens if you find something unsafe?”

“We fix it.”

Robin’s eyebrows shot up. “NHM _fixes_ things?”

“I—”

<Oh, I love her.>

<Not helpful, Will.>

Marian buried a sigh. “If I file my reports right.”

“I don’t think I have anything for you.” Robin turned back to the controls, settling her palm against the interface.

<Ooh, I guess snitches get stitches.>

Robin gestured behind her. “You’re going to have to stand, though there’s netting there, to strap you in a bit— it’s for excess cargo, truth be told."

“As a safety inspector…" Marian said, trying her best to put a smile in her voice. 

"Uh huh. I'm the only ride out of here for days."

Marian reached for the netting.

Robin swiveled back around, the green lights of the dash lighting her round face from below as the main lights shone orange above. “Alright, Ms. Safety. So if you’re not a spacer, where’s home for you?”

“Io,” Marian said, as the floor began to rumble. “Hey, give an injured girl some warning.”

“That wasn’t—” Robin frowned at the controls then half-climbed over the dash to peer up through the window. “Shit. Strap in.”

“What?”

“That wasn’t me. Something just hit the shields.” Robin fiddled with something on the dash, radio static springing to life. “Much, you feel that?”

“ _Whole rock felt it. Eighth district says they see at least three bogeys over their horizon.”_

“Shit.” The ship rolled as Robin abruptly changed course. “They know where the shield station is. Tell me if we get any other hot spots.”

 _“Roger that, Rob.”_ The static shut off.

“Robin, what’s going on?”

“Just hold tight,” Robin said, leaning forward in her seat as the ground zoomed closer to them.

“Someone’s attacking the hub?”

“Seems like,” Robin said, dropping them into a quick landing. The hatch unsealed with a hiss, and Robin was up the ladder and out of the ship before it had even fully opened.

<Mari, you got anything on you that can handle ships?> Will asked as Marian hauled herself back into the fizzing golden glow of the shields.

<Not from the _ground_.>

<We’ve really got to talk to our equipment people.>

Marian slid down the outside of the ship, black grime smearing off on her overalls. Down the path, Robin hopped over bright yellow warning rope and down through the open door of the old mine shaft.

<What’s she doing?> Marian sprinted after her, muting the ache in her side.

<Life signs down there,> Will said as Marian ducked inside. <Maybe it’s a bomb shelter.>

The old mining shafts swarmed with life. Marian had been here before, in eerie silence, tiptoeing past signs Will translated in the back of her mind. She dodged now through the churning crowd, trying to keep on Robin’s trail.

Robin pushed through a door labeled DANGER, Marian catching it before it closed behind her. “You know,” Marian said, “I just got into some hot water for ignoring a sign like that.”

Robin glanced back over her shoulder. “You still here, Io?”

<I wasn’t sure,> said Will. <But now that we’re back…>

The hairs on Marian’s arms rose up straight as the energy of Will’s scans thrummed through her. To a stranger, or to the young woman shoving boxes about and hollering across the room, it would only look like a shiver. If someone brushed her skin, they might get a static shock.

<The explosives are stored stably,> Will said, slowly.

<Good?>

Robin whirled around. “As long as you’re here,” she said, shoving a long, heavy rod into Marian’s hands. Something hit the outer shields, shaking the whole rock. A few people fell over, cursing, but most took it like the roll of a ship on one of Io’s lakes.

Marian closed her fingers over the odd length of machinery she held— heavy, cold. “Is this a weapon?”

“We’re a mining colony that’s tapped out every resource we’ve got except the people. We don’t have weapons.” Robin grinned, flushed cheeks creasing with it. “We do have mining equipment, though.”

Will’s voice was tense in the back of her head. <They’re stored stably, but there’s a bio-lock. Mari, the explosion wasn’t an accident. It was a trap.>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a work in progress, which I've never done on Ao3 before. I don't tend to write chronologically so?? we'll see??? how this goes??? 
> 
> But I like this world, I like these characters. Rough plan is to do the first third from Marian's POV, second third from Will's, and the last from Robin's, & a few closing chapters after that, which just seems fun to me.


	2. Marian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [I would have loved this place when I was about ten years old,] Will said with a whistle. 
> 
> [You would have given yourself tetanus here at ten years old,] Marian said. 

_Once upon a time, there was a maiden with a clockwork heart._

\--

With a shiver like a cat’s hackles rising, metallic plates curled into place over Marian’s spine. She shifted her weight, tapping the heavy excavator against her thigh to hide the faint click of the plates slotting into place. 

<A trap? Sure. Not for me, though,> she countered to Will, trying to convince her liver of the same thing. The little pump installed there was dumping a vivid cocktail of hormones into her system, thumping her heart along faster than she needed at the moment, thank you. 

Will’s voice thrummed down the connection between them. <These people are hiding something from you.> Marian could feel his hands tighten on the lukewarm coffee mug he was clutching, back on Io. Brenda from Accounting, in the next cube over, was tapping her long acrylic nails on her desk in an irregular pattern and Marian was about ninety seconds away from making Will do something about that.

<Maybe this store of _weapons_ ,> Marian said, taking in what she hadn’t had time to before— the locked, fortified cabinets now open to rows of objects that looked soundly capable of destruction. <Just a trap for anyone who comes looking.>

<I like that better,> Will admitted. <But, M, keep an eye out.>

<That’s what I have you for.>

<Yeah, well, I’m using _your_ eyes, so keep them open, okay?>

<And in the meantime they did just hand me a weapon, so we’re not in too much shit. Chill out, William.>

Robin leaned close, moving Marian’s hands to a set of buttons and switches. “This was used for precise excavation. Here’s off/on,” Robin said. “This is intensity. Here’s where the laser comes out, so don’t point it at anything you mind losing. Sound good?”

“I’ve got it. Won’t the shields block this, though? Or is this just for if they land?” The ground shook again and Marian shifted her weight and kept talking. “Because if they land, I think we’ll have bigger problems than this can solve.”

“The shields block projectiles, objects,” Robin said, shaking her head. “Energy weapons can pass through well enough.”

“In both directions?”

Robin made a face like Much was calling her a hero again. “Unfortunately.”

Marian stumbled, her knees locking, realizing in the same moment as she caught herself that what had seemed like a new explosion was in fact a _song_. 

<You gotta drop those adrenaline levels, Mari,> Will said. 

<You do it,> Marian snapped, squinting up at the creaky old mine alarm system, which was blasting a bouncy beat and garbled lyrics. Beside her, Robin sighed gently, even as she loaded, checked, and passed out another half dozen guns. <You’re the one who was yelling about _traps_.>

<I wasn’t yelling,> Will complained, reaching through their connection to tweak Marian’s liver settings. <I don’t yell.>

<Your whole soul is yelling.>

“Hey, _hey_ ! It’s for _morale_!” The yelp was young, high, and not very concerned. Marian glanced its way to find a familiar face-- Tuck, the not-quite-a-doctor, dragging a flailing kid who appeared to be made of mostly knees, elbows, and sulk. 

“They’re _your_ problem,” Tuck announced, dropping the kid in front of Robin. 

“Alan, turn off your music, the adults need to be able to hear each other,” Robin said, hefting up a long tubular device and cracking open its side panel to check its charge. She hummed at it, then passed it off to an old man in violet overalls. He tipped his hat at her and wandered off toward a rickety looking elevator. “Why’re they my problem?” Robin asked as Alan sulkily adjusted their streamer, their fingers dragging lighted symbols across its round glass surface. The music spluttered out to silence. 

“Because you’re getting the civs to the bunker,” Tuck said. 

Robin glanced up quickly, scowling. “I’m what? Tuck, I can--” 

“You’re the one who set up the rosters, Rob.”

<Aw, look how smug he is,> Will crooned happily. Marian shushed him. 

Robin’s scowl deepened. “Yet somehow I never find myself anywhere but tucked away safely.” 

Tuck shrugged, backing away and not avoiding the glare she sent after him. “Take it up with someone else, Rob, when things are over-- we don’t have time.” 

She sniffed. “Always an excuse. Alan, grab that torch for me?” 

Tuck stopped, a few paces back. Marian looked up from where she’d been fiddling with her excavator, checking its heft. “ _She’s_ still here.” 

Robin scoffed. “Where else would she be? I’m her ride.” She looked out into the close-packed hallway, raising her voice. “Hey, who here’s on duty? I know _you_ are, Roods-- get moving. The rest of you, you’re with me.” 

Tuck followed after her, keeping one wary eye on Marian. “You gave her a gun.” 

Robin flicked a hand at him, counting heads in the hallway. “I gave her some retired mining equipment.” 

“We don’t--” Tuck glanced at Marian and sent her a tight smile, much less ably than he had in his clinic. “We don’t know her.” Another impact hit the station. 

“Sure you do,” Marian said, riding out the shake with bent knees. Robin grabbed onto the wall with a bit-off curse, shaking a finger at Alan when the kid immediately tried to copy her diction. “You’ve had your hands in my spleen, after all, right, doc? Surely we’re friends, after that.” 

< _This_ is why the commander insisted on shaving the serial numbers off your implants,> Will said. <I admit I was a little dubious about the idea of anyone getting a good look at your spleen on a mission, but, as always, you live to disappoint me, M.>

Tuck huffed. “I’ve got things to do. Robin-- this is your problem.” 

“Aren’t they all,” Robin said, waving him off. 

The kid, Alan, slunk past Marian. “Fine, fine, I’ll go with Rob and the olds.” 

“Thanks for implying I’m not an old, kiddo,” Robin said, leaning an elbow on Alan’s bony shoulder. They were a couple inches taller than her, so it was a bit of a stretch. It had clearly been easier a few years back. Alan batted the contact away familiarly. Their corkscrew curls bobbed erratically under their red kerchief.

All around them, folks were swarming like ants by a drowning ant hill or under a cruel magnifying glass. Marian looked over her excavator, shifted her weight, tugged her panic levels a little lower down. 

<It’s just bandits,> Will agreed. <Worst case, they blow a shield. You launch your evac suit, sit and breathe til Command sends a ship to take you home.>

<Well, making the commander send out a ship special for me is a dour thought all on its own,> Marian said. 

The precise metronome of heels on tile broke through Alan’s complaining squawk, audible only to Will and Marian and Brenda from Accounting. As Robin waved Marian and a group of clear non-combatants to follow her, the even sound echoed inside Marian’s skull. <Will,> Marian started to say, hefting the excavator and following Robin.

Will hummed at her. <Speak of the commander,> he said and fuzzed out his line. 

< _Will_ ,> Marian snapped into the now echoing space between them. <Goddammit, Scarlet.> From the way her words got swallowed up, she knew he’d only done a one-way mute. The profanities she muttered as she followed Robin toward a metal gate inset into the rock wall were going to be registering in Will’s ears, even if all she got from him was static. 

They piled into the elevator, a group of fifteen. Despite Alan’s claim, the civs weren’t all elderly. Most of them weren’t too scared, either. Alan scrolled through something on their streamer. 

Marian leaned against the wireframe beside a woman who nearly jumped out of her skin when the elevator jerked and dropped. It was at a much shakier and faster rate than any Io elevator Marian had ever occupied, so she almost couldn’t blame her. Marian’s healing side itched, protesting every shake. “This your first firefight?” she asked. 

The woman glanced up at her through straight, even bangs. “No, I just-- last time they came, it… Who are you, again?” 

“A tourist with terrible luck,” Marian said, leaning back against the rattling cage of the elevator. “Call me Mari.” 

“Eva,” she said, softly. “It seems like they’re coming more and more, now.” 

“Hey, Miss Eva, how’s it going?” Robin slipped into the space on the other side of Eva, catching her elbow gently just as the elevator shook itself to a stop. 

“Been better,” Eva admitted. 

“I was hoping you’d do me a favor-- Gioberto’s a bit wobbly, after that thing with his hip. Do you think you could give him a hand? Let me know if we need to stop for him?” 

Eva’s fine-boned face firmed. “Can do, Rob.” 

“I know you can,” Robin said, stepping out of the elevator with her hand still gently on Eva’s elbow. “I appreciate it.” Eva pushed off into the crowd, tapping the shoulder of a potbellied man with an unfortunate haircut. 

“She’s pretty wobbly herself,” Marian pointed out quietly.

Robin shrugged, pushing forward down a dimly lit path. “Eva does better with someone to take care of. Come on, this way.” 

Marian ducked past a cobweb, listening for Will (still fuzzing at her) and eyeing the zigzag pattern of yellow lights along the walls. “And where are we going?” 

“Just somewhere to sit out the fight.” 

“Tuck called it a bunker. Don’t see that much, on mining rocks like this one.” 

“It’s not _really_ a bunker,” Alan said, wrinkling their nose. 

Robin dug a blue handkerchief out of her pocket and explained, as she swabbed her forehead, “It’s just a big space the miners cleared out and fortified to store their bigger equipment, to take breaks, back before we got the big elevator finished. But they did fortify it some, and it’s deep in the heart of the asteroid, so it’s one of the safer places when nonsense is happening on the surface.” 

A middle-aged woman who looked like a-- an accountant? A schoolteacher? The mayor? Gee, it would be nice if Will _reactivated his line_ \-- spoke up, words stumbling over each other, “If they burst through the rock wall, and we all get sucked into _space--_ we’re not spacers, we don’t have evac suits, we--”

“The other side of the rock isn’t _space_ ,” Alan said, casting a disparaging glance her way. They sniffed, shoving their streamer back up their sleeve, where it hovered in stasis right above their pulse point. “It’s just the other side of the asteroid. It’s, like, the virtual bowling alley.” 

Robin shot Alan a look and put a comforting hand on the woman’s elbow. “We’ve got the shields. They can bust up rock all they want, Ms. James, but we’ve got the shields, we can keep breathing. And it’ll be a lot before they get to you down here.” 

Ms. James clutched at Robin’s hand. “But you’re going to leave us here?” 

“We’re going to find you a nice spot to settle down,” Robin said. “You’ve got to keep an eye on Alan for me, right?” 

At this, Alan twisted up their face, radiating extreme offense, but didn’t say anything.

Ms. James sighed, gustily. “In your da’s day, we didn’t have bandits like this.” 

“Hard times are hard for everyone,” Robin said. 

She patted her cheek. “You’re too good, Robin.” 

Robin laughed. “Come on, Ms. James, just a few more turns and there’ll be a nice spot for you.” 

“You know it well down here,” Marian said. 

Robin shrugged, falling back to walk beside her. The lights flashed over them, yellow, lighting as they approached and flicking off into darkness behind them. Marian’s boots crunched over pebbles and debris. The rough-hewn edges of the carved space caught the light in a long series of jagged, irregular shapes. Robin said, “My ma and dad worked this mine til it shut down. I was ten, then, I think.” 

“Nine,” corrected an older gentleman walking behind them. “But you kept insisting on rounding up.” 

Robin smiled back at him and told Marian, “It ran out of reasonably accessible material. That’s why it shut down-- not the toxins, not the union complaints, not the deaths. They just decided there was nothing more they could squeeze out of this place that was worth having.” 

“I see why you don’t expect safety inspectors around here,” Marian said. 

Robin shook her head. “Not ones worth anything,” she said. She cast a glance Marian’s way. “But I don’t mind being proven wrong, if you’re in the mood.” 

“Deaths, you said,” Marian said, not taking the bait. 

“Hm.” Robin turned away. “Alan, what are you fiddling with? I don’t think John’ll appreciate his earpiece getting flooded with synth-pop.” 

“Synth-pop,” said Alan. “ _Synth_ \- _pop_ \-- you come into my house, Locks, you malign _my_ music--”

“Not going to answer, then?” Marian said. 

Robin looked back at her. The emergency lights flashed on her zippers, her wire-frame glasses, the clip that was slowly slipping out from where it was holding the flop of her longer hair in place. “You going to do something about it?” She smiled slightly. “Can you?” 

When Marian didn’t respond, Robin grinned even cheekier and turned, continuing down the dim corridor.

<I told you, I like her,> Will said, abruptly popping back into existence. 

<Sure,> Marian said, letting herself fall to the back of the group, Will’s presence rising up around her comfortably. <But she’s not as much use as I was hoping.>

<With getting you home? Uh, I feel like she’ll probably get on that as soon as the asteroid stops being under _fire._ You’re a hard customer, M.>

<No, with getting a lead on the bandits.>

<Hey, Commander said to close up mission. Come home, recuperate.>

<Like you said,> Marian pointed out, following Robin down a slick slope. She reached out to offer an elbow to an old man with a teal bowler hat. <My ride home’s stuck here. And so long as I am, too…>

<You workaholic,> Will said fondly. 

Marian’s boots made little sound on the damp stone floor. <Was that the commander you fuzzed me out for, Scarlett?>

<Yeah, but you know, just water cooler talk.>

<Sure,> said Marian.

<Would I lie to you?>

< _Yes_.>

“We’re here,” said Robin, ducking around a bend and hitting something that made bright fluorescents hum into view. The path had been lit by a series of automated lights, lighting and dimming as they passed them, but this was much brighter. It had a cheery feel to it, as cheery as you could be amid this much rock and rusting equipment. 

<I would have loved this place when I was about ten years old,> Will said with a whistle. 

<You would have given yourself tetanus here at ten years old,> Marian said. 

The alcove-- the bunker-- had just enough headspace that Marian didn’t have to duck. If she stood on tiptoe, though, she could feel her high ponytail brush the rough ceiling. Her stomach was shifting, uncomfortable. She held a hand to it gently, wondering if something was healing or misaligned after Tuck’s work on her. 

“Oh don’t worry,” Robin said. “It’s just the gravity comps. We’re near the center of the asteroid, and the original infrastructure was never very… precise. It gets weird down here.”

“Lovely,” Marian said. 

“It’s kind of, I don’t know, romantic,” Robin said, smiling up at the ceiling. “I used to love sneaking down here, to the hollow heart of our home. It makes it all feel bigger and smaller all at once.”

The ground shook under them—another hit, a big one. Alan fell into the side of an old transporter, scrambling for purchase on the tarp covering it. They scrubbed at their shoulder, scowling and not bothering pushing themselves up out of their accidental sprawl. “You’re always the best babysitter, Rob,” they said darkly. “I love hiding out from bombs in dark holes in the ground, and you calling them _rom_ \--”

They were cut off by a sudden flood of water from the ceiling. Alan was drenched mid-sentence, mouth still open around the words. The water hit the floor with a roar of impact, but then abruptly changed direction, streaming out into the far corridor. It left Alan clutching at the tarp, dripping and shell-shocked, their feet knocked out from under them. 

“Shit,” Robin said, from where she was holding up an eldery gentleman. “Shit, shit, shit. It shouldn’t be-- it’s the water from the main reservoir, that’s the only place we store this much. It must have taken a hit.” 

<Water that rains from the ceiling and then _dodges out your door_ ?> Will demanded. <If the Belters have discovered _sentient water_ and haven’t told anyone, I am definitely going to have to be their friend.>

“The water,” Marian said. “It moved like…”

“The gravity fields are funky here, I told you,” Robin said and Marian flushed a little—she should have been able to catch that. She reached out with her sensors now and found pulsating manufactured gravity fields. They’d clearly yanked the water down from a crack overhead, then pivoted and sluiced them out into the corridor. As she watched, the same pattern came again, and she reached out to yank Alan away from the resultant gravity shift and flood. This time, a good few inches stayed on the floor of the bunker.

“How much water in the reservoir?” Marian said, dragging her boots through the water. 

“It’s the reservoir for the whole asteroid,” Robin said, already turned around and counting heads. “I don’t know how many-- how many _mining tunnels_ that works out to be. But if it’s coming down here, there’s going to be spots that are just flooded.”

“And it’ll just keep flooding down here. If we get to higher ground...” Marian said. 

<Then there’s a firefight,> Will pointed out. <But I suppose better than drowning.>

<Having gone both ways before,> Marian agreed. 

“I don’t know which-- twelve, thirteen, god where’s Eva, there she is-- I don’t know which paths are going to be flooded-- or be _waterfalls_. The grav tries to correct for presence of humans but…” Robin took a few splashing strides to look out the closer door. Marian followed-- the water down the corridor was sloped up at an angle, brimming. Marian reached out with her sensors, then reached out for Robin’s arm. “That one’s about to--” she said, just as the water rushed just past them, a roar just in front of their noses that sent small lapping waves against their knees. 

Robin stood very still in the doorway. Marian turned away, scanning for something useful. The soaked tarp Alan had been leaning on had been washed out the door, revealing the ten-seater transport now getting drenched in another downpour. “Hey, how all-terrain is that thing?” she called over the roar of the water. 

Robin was still standing, looking out into the corridor, which had now cleared itself to a few inches of churning water. “Either the grav systems took another hit, or the flooding’s causing shorts somewhere,” she said. She pushed her fingers under her glasses, to her eyelids, and whispered, “Shit, shit, okay,” then turned around. Her eyes were flinty, her voice even. “Alan, the speaker system, it’s not water proof. It’s not built for this.”

“Yeah, I don’t think we’re worried about the soundtrack to our great escape,” Marian called. She caught the elbow of Teal Bowler Hat, who had stumbled when another surge rolled down from the ceiling. “Hey there, I got you.” He patted her arm gently as she passed him off to Eva. 

“No-- exactly,” Robin said, striding back into the room. “Any path that’s really flooded is going to have at least a few speakers fried. Alan, can you see which are still active? Which return your pings?” 

Alan blinked, pushing back a sodden curl that had escaped their bandana. “Not quite what’s happening, Locks, but yeah, I think I--” They fumbled, slipping their streamer down into the palm of their hand, where it floated like a weird glass petri dish. With a tap of their thumb, it flashed to life and Alan bent down to work. 

“You get me a map,” Robin said from where she was digging through an open cabinet. The first armful of fluorescent vests hit Marian nearly in the face. “ _You_ pass those and these helmets out to everyone. If the grav’s that shitty out there, it’s going to get bumpy.” 

<Yes, sir,> Will said cheerily, but Marian just grabbed a few helmets and waded back toward the huddled civilians. 

“The transport will run, even submerged,” Robin called, as she filled her own arms with helmets and turned to follow, finally answering Marian’s question. “It’s got some minimal personal grav, which will help but only to a degree.” 

“Only a ten-seater, we’ll have to double up,” Eva said with a look of shaky determination. A smattering of freckles dusted over her nose, which was sheened with sweat. “We’re friendly. We’ll make it work.” 

Robin closed a warm hand over Eva’s elbow as she passed her a helmet and a vest. “Yes, we will.” 

“What’s the vest for?” Alan demanded, thumbs still going wild over their streamer. 

“In case we lose you,” Robin said. She flicked her gaze over to Marian, who had given out her last vest already. “Even you, overalls. Those’re a good orange, but these vests have tracking chips in them, in case we really lose you. Limited range, but it’s saved a life or two.” 

Marian accepted the vest she thrust at her, tugging it on even as they herded folks through the knee-deep water to the transport. There was a spare, so she grabbed a helmet, too, even though in a fight between this helmet and her skull, her skull might just win. 

<Not that that’s something I want to share with the class,> she added to Will, swinging up into the back of transport where the miners would have stored bags and equipment. Alan had folded themself down there, too, hooking an elbow around the welded-down leg of one of the seats and continuing to type one-handed.

“Rob, I think I got it,” they called. “Out, left, head down past the grotto…” 

The engine revved up under them. Eva bounced down into her seat, having finished checking everyone’s seat belts. Robin called over her shoulder. “Everyone hold on, alright? We’re going to get you out of here, and back up to dry land. We’ve seen worse than this and you know it.” 

“Hip hip,” said Teal Bowler Hat, clutching what appeared to be a bag of knitting to his chest. 

Out in the corridor, the water was low again, sloshing at their tires. <You got a map for me, Will?>

<Uploading. The kid’s using a local network to get readings from the speaker system, though. I’m too far to get any timely readings there, unless I can access it through our connection somehow.>

<I can’t get you the busted speakers, but I can get you the gravity surges,> Marian said, reaching out with her sensors as far as she could. It wasn’t extensive, as the sensors were mostly to support the calculations of her personal gravity system, but it was something. She could feel Will pull the data in and start running models on it. 

The transport’s weak personal grav was trying to anchor it to its closest contact surface. The mine grav system seemed to be a patchwork of grav generators, each installed as the tunnels grew and twisted. They’d put some sort of intelligence over it all, and Marian suspected that was what had gotten fried. The grav systems themselves were still acting, still pushing and pulling at the matter around them. 

“Left up ahead,” Alan called. Their voice cracked a little on it, but they cleared their throat and went on, “Up towards Gale’s grotto.” 

“Where are you going?” Marian demanded. “The elevator’s that way.” It was a pinging dot on Will’s map. 

“I’m not taking us up a flooded elevator in wonky gravity,” Robin said. She made a sharp turn left, accelerating up into a narrow upward tunnel. The ceiling flashed overhead what seemed like much too close. “We’re taking the long way around.” 

The slope threw Marian backwards in the transporter bed, her shoulders thudding against the railing. She gripped one of the metal bars of it, following along using Will’s map. Her grav sense was still thrown out in front of them, so when it started to shift she called out, “About to get a bit rocky!” 

Robin tightened her hands on the steering wheel, cursing, while the others all grasped at their restraints as the transport shook under them. Pebbles flew from the ground up to the ceiling with thuds and clatters as the transport’s limited internal grav tried to keep itself pinned down. The engine shook under Marian’s feet, pushing them all forward. 

A roar was rising, so Marian rose up on her knees, squinting ahead. “That sounds like water.”

“Yeah, thanks, I noticed,” Robin called over her shoulder. She was slowing the transport. 

“Keep going!” Alan called. “Faster, and be ready with the grav system.” 

“Alan, are you leading me to the gorge?” Robin shouted back. 

“It’s like ten feet across and we have a grav sys on this thing!” 

“Not a good one!” 

“Which is why you need to go _faster_ ,” Alan called back. 

<Faster than this,> Will said, pulling the map and the transporter specs and running the model for it. 

“Faster than this!” Marian shouted and Robin grumbled a curse at both of them and shoved the accelerator down harder. Eva was hyperventilating and very fiercely holding two different people’s hands comfortingly. 

<Mari, can you access the grav system? You and I can run this better than its auto-enabler.>

<Mm,> Marian said, prying a panel off the truck bed and reaching down until she found some suitable innards to access. The transport’s grav system was similar enough to her own to not feel too clunky. She took a quick glance at the map and model Will was transposing before Robin shouted, “ _Goddamit_ Alan,” and drove straight through a sheet of cascading water and off a cliff. 

Marian felt Robin tweaking at the controls up on the dash, trying to adjust the grav manually, too, but she already had it tightly in hand, rebuffing the commands of the manual system. Marian yanked the controls straight, not just keeping them from falling but also dropping them directly forward, over a railing and into the corridor on the far side of the narrow gorge. 

“Shit!” Robin said as they hit ground. “God, okay.”

Will whooped. <Next time we get assigned to the Belt, _I’m_ going. That was wonderful!>

“Everyone alright?” Eva said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the waterfall, not that it would have been very audible in dead silence at that moment either. Ms. James patted her hand gently. 

Robin let out a short gusty breath and then pushed the transport forward again. Marian had released the grav controls back to default. “We’re almost out, folks,” Robin said. “Hang tight, alright?” 

In the space they’d landed, the lights had all blown out. Pale blue marks twisted along the walls, glowing faintly. They were the only source of light, though Marian’s eyes were adjusting quickly-- well, not quite her eyes. There were some optical implants out there that could do such things, but it was just Will running some quick post-processing on the light she was getting and beaming the results back to her. 

“What is this?” Marian said, squinting at light staining the walls. 

“They shut this old line down,” Alan said, slipping their thumb over their streamer. “Vein tapped out, so they boarded it up and shut the power down to it. Folks still sneak down here to, whatever.” They waved a hand and called, “Rob, we’re gonna have to break through the boards and stuff.” 

“This thing’s meant for debris removal,” Robin said. “I’m not worried.” 

The transporter rolled along the slight upward path, jostling them slightly. The noise of the waterfall faded behind them and, soaked through, Marian upped her body temperature, though not so much she’d start doing something obvious like steaming. “Is the paint reflective?” she said, though she could see that even the marks outside of the transport’s headlights were shining. 

“Bioluminescent paint, like, algae or something,” Alan said. “They used to use it for emergency markings in the event of a cave-in or power-outage. Self-lit signs.” 

“You got a lot of knowledge there,” Marian said. 

“What?” Alan said, wrinkling their nose like that was an accusation, not an observation. “Some of the less gross things people do down here is write poetry on the walls. Or art. It’s neat that it’s, like, done with a paint made by the corp and meant for emergencies, but co-opted, you know? And like that it came from a living thing. The algae glows when disturbed-- it _is_ life and, and it creates light. And they tried to make it something boring and useful, but hey, here we are, aglow.” 

Their curls, which had nearly doubled in length when drenched, were shortening again, though still hanging in elongated twists. The bandana was clearly an amateur dye-job of some other sort of clothing and the water had washed some of its red dye down to streak across Alan’s forehead. They grinned at Marian, and Marian imagined that grin as gap-toothed, remembering Robin leaning her elbow up onto their shoulder like it had once been much shorter. “I just think it’s neat,” Alan said. 

“Me, too,” Marian promised. 

By the time they had crashed through the barrier on the closed out corridor (to Will’s audible glee) and reached the corridor closest to the front of the mines, the water was just slicking the floor. The puddles shook as another blow hit the asteroid. Robin threw the transport into park. Marian could see her hesitate-- inside, this close to the surface, there was the threat of a cave-in from a direct blow. Outside, there was nothing between them and the sky. 

Marian hopped out the back of the transport, splashing up toward the entrance. A faint sheen of the shields’ golden light drifted down toward them, surprising after the yellow gleam of the mines. “Take them back a bit, as far in as you can go and still feel like you can escape if the water comes.” 

“And let you do what, Io?” Robin said. 

Marian looked back over her shoulder at the small woman sitting at the front of the transport. Her hands were wrapped around the steering wheel and her eyes steady, like there were answers Marian could give that would be unacceptable. 

“It’s not safe for them up here yet, or down there either,” Marian said, waving back at the waterlogged tunnels they’d come through, not pausing in her half-jog up toward the light. “Can’t fix the water. Might be able to help with this.” 

“You’re injured,” Robin called after her. 

“I’m a really good shot,” she said. She was out the entrance before she could hear Robin’s reply, still hefting the excavator she’d been given. 

Out in the main space she’d been in before, Marian beelined her way to the weapons’ locker, which still had its door hanging open. <Hopefully this time it doesn’t blow up on you,> Will offered dryly. 

Marian ignored him and shouldered her way inside, shoving through the remaining weapons. Most were co-opted mining equipment, sure, but a few of these were the real deal. Her hands settled on a large cannon while Will whistled low in the back of her mind. 

<I’ve run a few sims with this one,> he said, quickly uploading the weight and recoil of it straight into Marian’s muscle memory, its range and damage flashing before her eyes. She lifted the cannon but kept the excavator, too. 

“I’ll take it,” she said and stepped back out into the main area. 

A short figure stood there, arms crossed over her chest. “Give me that,” Robin said, taking the excavator from her. 

“Aren’t you babysitting?” Marian said. She glanced toward the exits, trying to decide which way to head. 

“Eva’s got them,” she said. “And Alan won’t let them be too silly. Come on, this way.” Robin led her to the second elevator, which rattled its way upward. “There’s a platform, up above, might give us a good angle. The others should be up there.” 

Will was trying to pull any information on the attackers, but local authorities hadn’t picked up on it yet. There wasn’t much in his channels. 

The elevator squealed to a halt, making Marian wonder about real safety inspectors and elevator inspections. Two ships hovered outside the golden shields, one larger than the other. A handful of the townsfolk Robin had armed were arrayed on the platform, the light of their weapons arcing toward the bandits’ ships. 

Marian stepped off, in front of Robin. She glanced around once before throwing herself onto her belly at the edge of the covered platform. <Well, I suppose we _did_ get sent here to take care of some bandits.>

“They’re aiming for the life support units,” Robin said, lifting her head and squinting at the closest ship. “Shit— someone did recon. They shouldn’t know where those _are_. If those blow—” She shook her head. “They want to suffocate us out, then scrap the place for parts.” 

Will hummed, the sound reverberating down Marian’s spine. <Why would the bandits attack this place just after helping them with the gravity? Maybe they helped out during the grav failure just to find out the locations of the support systems?>

<No, I don’t think this is the same group.> Marian made an experimental shot towards one of the ships, testing the reach of the laser, the sensitivity of the trigger. Robin thudded down next to her, with a breathless curse. 

<What?> Marian could feel Will frowning. 

<These attackers,> Marian said. <They aren’t the ones we’re looking for. Look at their ships, their weapons? They’re not equipped to go after trans-Belt trade ships. From the footage we’ve seen, our bandits move light, strike fast. Speeders, grappling hooks, EMPs. This is too clumsy.>

Marian watched the arc of violent light across the sky shift. One of the ship’s weapons burned into the ground around the life support unit, black smoke billowing up from the rock. Marian could smell it, even from this distance. The beams rising up from the asteroid’s surface were sluffing off the ship’s shields. “They’re not reaching it,” Marian gritted out.

“Maybe third district has a better shot,” Robin said, reaching for her radio.

“Clear me a space,” Marian said. She stumbled to her feet, backing up from the ledge. Robin stared at her, startled, then rolled out of the way. 

Marian gripped the gravity controls at her belt, then took off at a sprint. Her feet hit the ground one, two, three times, and then she pushed off, using her personal gravity unit to create two new vectors of gravitation: one to counteract the manufactured gravity of the asteroid, and the other to send her into horizontal free fall, speeding toward the attacking ship.

She lifted the cannon, leaving the fine tuning of the gravity to Will. <Class Tychon,> he said, over the rush of the air. <Their shields are weak at the crease where the front and back end fields meet.> He overlaid Marian’s vision with the light spectrum that would display the shields, and they sprang up an eerie white around the ship. The beams it was shooting at the life support units glared violet.

Marian let all her breath tumble out of her lungs. She cradled the cannon in both hands, finger pulling the trigger half-cocked. She watched the ghostly line that was the Tychon’s shields meeting, interfering with each other, and then fired.

The ship went down, streaming white smoke. It crashed into the outside of the shields, then into a neighboring asteroid. A chunk tore off and spun silently away, spitting sparks in a last gasp of venting oxygen.

Marian had pulled more triggers in her life than she could remember. It felt good, it felt clean, to do so in the open, in defense of nothing more than civilian life support.

<Goddammit, I don’t think this thing has a safety,> Marian said, readjusting her grip on the cannon. She took the gravity controls back over from Will, letting it pull her back to the ground. 

Marian landed with a shock that rolled up through her feet and dispersed in the dampeners in her knees. She rose from her crouch, taking one quick inhale under the golden glow of the shields to revel at the strength and steadiness of it. She’d known days when stairs defeated her, when her hands drooped at lifting a book. Even with her side itching and a few twinging aches of healing, taking a leap and landing it felt miraculous. 

In the sky, the other ship went down under the beams from the mine’s platform. If there were other attackers still in the air, they were on the other side of the asteroid. Marian put the cannon carefully over one shoulder, feeling its weight push down on battered muscles.

<Well alright!> Will crowed, re-running the footage of the Tychon going down. <Very nice!>

<Mm.> Marian rolled her neck once and then began the slow plod back toward the mine. The cannon weighed heavy on her shoulder and she adjusted her stride to balance for it. <So, Will, what did she have to say?>

<Who?> said Will, like he was an innocent babe and not a terrible ragamuffin who plagued her life on the regular. He took a long and unintentional swig of the cold, grainy dregs of his coffee and very bravely didn’t spit it out onto his keyboard. 

<The _commander_ , Will.> Pebbles crunched under her feet. God, it was a lot longer to walk this than it had been to fall. 

<Just a check in. Nothing important.>

<Will-->

<Hey, she didn’t come to talk to you. She came to talk to me. I can decide what I want to pass on.> He drummed his fingers on his empty coffee mug. <You don't have to listen to shit that hurts you just because it hurts you, because you can take it. I can listen for you.>

<I need to know what she said.>

<You think I won’t tell you, if it’s something important? It's not that you want to know. It's not that you think I'm _hiding_ anything from you-- if that's really truly the case, you tell me, M, and I'll stop. You know I will. Don’t you?>

<Of course I fucking do, Will.> The itching in her side had almost died down, but it was being eagerly replaced by a shake in her legs and a rising ache up her left side. 

<But this is just about the hurt. You don't need it. I don't need it. She can't hurt me like she can hurt you.>

<She doesn't matter to you,> Marian snapped. <She's not-- you can't read her like I can. I need to _know._ Is she pissed about the explosion? About the delay? I was only here a week before the accident, but I was making progress, and that’s within mission norms-->

<She just wanted a health checkup.>

<But she said something sideways, didn’t she? That I didn’t spot the trap. That my skin’s not shrapnel-proof yet.>

<Yeah she maybe fucking did, M, but you’re not here and you don’t have to take it. Go save an asteroid. Yell at me later.>

<...I wasn’t yelling.>

Will pressed his fingers to his forehead, little points of pressure. <Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe you weren’t. Maybe I deserve it. But Mari, when she passes me knives meant for your back I don’t really like to pass them on.>

<That’s not what she-- my mother loves me, Will.> She was almost to the mine, and Marian could see a small figure at the entrance to it, arms crossed, smiling. Will was waiting in the back of her mind and Marian swallowed hard. <She does. She just wants me to be my best.>

<You _are_ your goddamn best, Mari,> Will said. <And I need some coffee.>

He headed off to do that, his footsteps ringing in her mind, as Marian made the last approach to the mine and Robin in its doorway. “They got the rest of them?” she said, when she was close enough to be heard. Robin wouldn’t be standing here otherwise, she suspected, but it was good to hear.

“All clear,” said Robin, stepping out to catch her elbow. Marian sagged into the support gratefully. Robin grinned at her. “Safety inspector, huh?”

“Yep.” Marian huffed a laugh, soft so she wouldn’t jar her side any more than she had to. Robin's grip kept her upright, rough and warm against bare skin. “Best in the business.”

“Come on with me,” Robin said, helping her inside. “Alan says they made a victory playlist, and, let me tell you, that will be a sound to behold.”


	3. Marian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our last Marian POV chapter before we go on to Will's three!

_Once upon a time, a jester sharpened a knife._

It was two p.m. on Io, which meant Will was having a belated vending machine lunch of stale chocolate and potato chips while Marian settled herself down for breakfast at Much’s. Robin slid into the seat across from her, looking just as far too awake as she had when she’d picked Marian up from Tuck’s infirmary. 

Will was not a morning person. It wasn’t that Marian herself wasn’t one-- she was a whatever-was-necessary person: late nights, early mornings, cat naps. But this old mining town woke up early enough, it seemed, still tethered to an old schedule of manufactured sunrises. “Coffee?” Robin asked, pushing over a mug she’d grabbed from a wall dispenser. “It’s hot and that’s all I can promise.”

“Thanks,” Marian said, reaching for it slowly. She was healed over, mostly, but Robin had seen enough of the initial damage on her that she ought to act like she’d just had a hole blown in her less than seventy-two hours back. 

“You alright?” Robin asked as Marian brushed a tentative hand over her own ribs. “You’re barely out of the hospital.” 

Marian took a sip of the coffee, which was indeed hot, and would have stripped some rust from her if her mouth had had an out-of-use wrench in it instead of a tongue. But it was a tongue she had, so she swallowed and let the liquid duel it out with her stomach acid. “You know I was at Tuck’s for the night for the cot, not the medical care.” 

Will smacked his lips on the other end of the line. <That stuff is nearly as black as what they serve in office.>

Marian took another sip, bracing herself, and shook her head slightly. <Will, I think some of it’s lost in translation. Can you eat a chip? I need something to wash this out, my god.>

“Sure, sure,” said Robin. “I’d have taken you in, but Tuck scooped you up, and anyway I ended up with a family of six taking over my place-- their apartment got caught in the cross-fire.” 

“Cozy.”

Robin shrugged. “It is. But you’re holding up okay? Tuck’ll kill me if it turns out you pulled a single of his stitches because I dragged you into antics.” 

“You didn’t drag me into anything, and I’m fine anyway-- hale and hearty,” Marian said. “I don’t need you worrying about my spleen.” 

“Yeah, okay.” Robin smiled. “Those NHM implants are sturdy, I know.”

Alarm bells went off in Marian’s head, by which she meant Will stopped crunching on his chips and sat up straighter. 

“Sorry-- was that too forward?” Robin grinned ruefully, spinning her steaming mug with a finger. “People tell me I get too familiar too fast, when I want to be friends.” 

“I,” said Marian. <Will, how does she know they’re NHM-issue? Did we-- we pulled video of every surgery, I _know_ what they put in me shouldn’t be identifiable-->

“You’re not the first person Tuck’s seen with stolen NHM goods in them,” Robin said, leaning forward at the barely hidden panic rising on Marian’s face. “When you need a kidney, you need a kidney and there’s a lot of places you can go to get them outside of official channels. Scraped off serial numbers don’t make them work less good.” 

<Hell on the warranty, though,> Will said, relaxing enough to finish chewing and swallowing his mouthful of lunch. 

Robin reached out to touch the back of her hand. “There’s nothing wrong with surviving. I’m hardly going to judge you.” 

“I didn’t say I stole them,” Marian stammered. She could have said it without stammering, but she was, to be honest, not really sure of the next step here, and stammering nervously was a good way to let Robin assume whatever she needed to hear. She wasn’t getting any signs of a threat here, so no reason to jump on the defense. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Robin said. “Just-- don’t be afraid. Not here.” 

Over Marian’s shoulder, someone cleared their throat. She swiveled around to find Alan standing there with an apron, a tray of steaming bowls, and their earbuds in. “Gruel?” Alan said, just slightly too loudly. 

“Alan Dale Muchson,” Much said, hurrying over as fast as his cane would let him, “We do not call your grandmother’s recipe _gruel_. Gruel is for sadness, and this is _breakfast_. This is _good_.” 

“So I should call it… breakfast? I feel like that’s not really specific enough for our guests here. Oatmeal?” Alan squinted down at the glutinous beige bowls on the tray. Faint rhythmic blaring filtered its way out of their earbuds. “But I don’t think this is oats… Porridge? Grits? Congee?”

Much sighed. “Go with _porridge_ , if you must.” 

“How can the kid hear him over the music?” Marian whispered. 

Robin leaned an elbow on the table. “I stopped wondering years ago. I think they taught themself how to read lips.” She tapped the table twice. “Two porridge, please, and I’d love some hot sauce.” 

Alan adjusted to hold the tray in one hand, then slid two bowls off onto the table. They clattered onto the table with the hollow sound of cheap plastic, steaming. 

“Hot sauce coming up,” Much said. “I’ll go grab that for you, Rob. Back to work, you, go, go.” 

“Did you know horchata is technically a gruel?” Alan said, flicking their thumb over their streamer as they wandered off toward another seated group with their tray balanced on their other hand. 

Much leaned both hands onto the table, teeth bared into something like a smile. “Light of my life, that kid. That they feel confident mocking me is proof they feel safe with their father, right, isn’t that right?” 

“While you have hired me to babysit, you’ve never hired me to psychoanalyze,” said Robin. “And if you want me to start, I will request a pay raise.”

“You’re Alan’s father?” Marian asked. 

Much nodded, collapsing from hands on table to elbows. “My life is full of blessings,” he groaned. Then he propped himself up, itching along the edge of his eyepatch. “Honestly, though, they’re a good kid.” 

“They kept their head well, with the flooding,” Marian offered. “Really helped us out there.” 

“As someone keeps reminding me,” Much said with a glance at Robin. 

“I’m just very proud of them,” Robin said, stirring her porridge gently. 

“Fine, fine, let me grab your hot sauce.” Much shoved up off the table and left them. Marian watched the unevenness of his gait, absently calculating the most vulnerable parts of his stride. 

<Hey, you are tired, aren’t you?> Will said. <Took a lot out of you. Stop hunting the locals.>

<Shush, you.>

The porridge was good, the hot sauce unnecessary, and neither Robin or Much would let Marian pay when she was done. “Kitchen doesn’t really work like that,” Much said. “We don’t get tourists here, really, and we’ve got a central fund for food supply.” 

“And anyway, free bed and board for a night is hardly overpaying for knocking a warship out of the sky.” 

“Tychon class is hardly a warship,” Marian argued. 

“Well if you bring down something bigger on our behalf, I’ll be sure to give you a few more courses then,” Much said. “In the meantime, get off my rock if you’re going.” 

Outside, the shields overhead buzzed out the bright gold of late morning. The shields had some light emissions inherent in their design, but one could change the frequency to some extent. In the evening, the shields over the whole asteroid darkened as much as they could, which turned out to be a low, burnished ember of a color. 

“Hm,” said Marian with a huff of a laugh. 

“What?”

“Just realized I expected you to have some degree of time zones here,” Marian said. “But it’s so small, of course you don’t.” 

“So Earth-centric,” Robin said. “Io has time zones?” 

“Sure,” Marian said, “but, I mean, I guess it doesn’t make much more sense than having them here.” 

Robin’s ship waited patiently for them. The rocky earth of the asteroid spread out past the metal walkways. Marian’s footfalls sang out with each step. 

“You sure you’ve got to go on today?” Robin said, slotting her mail sledge into her ship with a strong roll of the shoulders. She pushed herself back upright, turning to Marian. “I mean, the food’s not so bad, yeah? And, with the attack, you were…”

“Useful?” Marian said, grinning. 

“Helpful,” Robin countered. 

“Sorry, but yeah, I’ve got a job to get back to. I can’t stay.” 

“Got to get back to safety inspecting,” Robin said, dry. 

“Things can hardly inspect themselves,” Marian said. “After all, I’ve got to prove to you the quality of my profession, don’t I?” 

“You’ve got your work cut out for you, Io.” Robin shook her head. “If you’re ever in this neck of the woods again, give us a shout. We can always use helpful people around here.” Robin popped the hatch to the ship and made her way inside, waving Marian to follow. “No passenger seats installed since our last attempted egress,” she said, “so hold on tight.” 

The engine hummed to life beneath them, a much more peaceful rumble than the explosions from the day before. The dash flashed buttons companionably at Robin, who poked at some dials and switches but ignored others. Marian bent her knees as the ship shifted under them and then lifted up and away from the ground. 

Marian tangled herself further in the wall netting, the hub growing smaller below them. When they passed through the shields, a fizz of gold swallowed the whole ship for a moment as it read them as friendly and passed them through. 

The blackness of space flooded into view like a breath of fresh air. Marian’s stomach turned over as the gravity of the asteroid swapped almost seamlessly with the revving grav drive of the ship. 

“There we are,” said Robin. 

Outside the viewpane, asteroids tumbled, slow and silent. Marian could spot the golden globes of two more hubs in the distance, blazing in the endless night.

<When we gonna tell the commander we’re coming back with nothing to show for it?>

<We got a few bandits,> Marian countered.

<Not the right ones.>

Out in the darkness, something flashed, like a star vanishing behind a rock. 

Marian froze. <Shit,> Will said, catching her focus. <Do you think?>

Marian gripped the netting so hard her knuckles creaked, leaning forward. “Robin, I need you to make a detour.”

Robin frowned, glancing back at her briefly. “I’ve got a bucket in the back, if you've really got to go.”

Marian barely heard her, the memory of that golden flash still burning in her eyes. “Have you heard the story the Belt kids tell? About the bandit king who lives inside a star.”

Robin’s hands were still on the controls. “Kids say a lot of nonsense.”

“Kids hear a lot of things,” Marian said softly, not moving, not blinking, staring out over Robin’s tense shoulder. 

“Hear a lot of what?” Robin said. She tugged the controls slightly left, turning their course to avoid a bit of slow debris. “Nursery rhymes? I don’t…”

Marian leaned closer to the viewpane, fingers twisting in the netting, Will sluicing the visual data through their link. “I couldn't figure out how they were doing it,” she said. “The bandits are obviously based in the Belt, but where do they _go_ ? Where do they store their equipment? I've hit every dead-end rock in this place and found _nothing_.” Marian said, “You can't hide out here— you need the shields, and those are visible miles off. But they were clever. You see that, right there? The asteroid just to the left of that big one. Wait for it and—”

Robin squeezed her hands around the controls. “Wait for _what_? Marian, you’re freaking me out.”

The asteroid rotated slowly; there was a flash of golden light. Marian grinned. “It's just a cave, with a shield set up _inside_ of it. Just a flash in the night, another star, right under our noses. I’ve got to get to that asteroid.”

“Um, excuse me?” Robin jammed a few buttons down, activating the auto-pilot, and swiveled around to stare at her. “What if it's full of, like you expect, _bandits_?”

Marian was still grinning, the orange lights of the cabin beating down on her. “Then they get to meet _me._ ”

Robin shook her head, hands tightening on the edge of her seat. “We just fought them, anyway! Marian, this is crazy. _Whatever_ you're doing here, just write your report and go home.”

“No, not those hacks. The ones I'm after are still out there. Let’s go.”

Robin reached back and stopped the ship. They floated among rocks, that small gold light winking in and out as the asteroid spun. Robin’s small fists were balled, her round face certain. She didn't look so young, now. She looked Marian's age, now, down to the scar tissue.

<Careful,> said Will softly. <She knows something.>

Marian’s fingers staggered on the wall of the ship and Robin said, softly, “No. I won’t.”

“You don’t have to come-- just drop me off, I’ve got my evac suit. Robin, I won’t let you get hurt. You don’t have to worry.” 

“I won’t do it,” Robin said. “I’m taking you to the main hub and washing my hands of it. Don’t make this my problem.” 

“I need to get to that asteroid.” 

“Find another ride,” Robin said, chin firm, hands in fists. 

<Mari…>

Marian reached into her bag, pulled out her gun, and put it to Robin’s temple. “No. Let’s go.”

Robin squeezed her eyes shut.

“I said let’s go,” said Marian, hands not shaking at all, and Robin reached out to activate the ship.

Marian kept her eyes on Robin’s face, washed from below in green. “Why are you protecting them? I _know_ some of those supplies in Tuck’s ward you can’t find out on berths like these. I know you know _something_. I was hoping— How’s what they do any different than the bandits who hit your hub?"

Robin’s mouth was set and grim. She shook her head, glancing at the barrel of Marian's weapon and then away. “You’re right. You can’t find meds like that here. So how do you think we get them? I deliver what I deliver. I’m not stupid, Marian.”

“I didn't think you were. So why won't you help me? I was sent here to save people, to keep the supplies lines safe.”

“Those are two different things!” said Robin.

<She’s not wrong,> Will said. 

“Are they? What about the hospitals those meds and parts are going to?” Marian said. <Will, I don’t-- I don’t need that, just stop.> “Robin, please. I know you help people. I know you care. What happens on Io when the meds all get waylaid and passed out here to the highest bidder?”

“Then the people _here_ don’t die.” Robin didn’t look at her, eyes on the asteroid they were slowly circling closer to.

“And what about the children out there, waiting for new hearts that won’t come?”

“They’re not my children.”

Marian stepped back. “Cold.”

Robin let her eyes fall half closed, the orange lights playing over her eyelids. “It’s not. I’m not the one killing them.”

“I didn’t say—”

Robin’s eyes snapped open. “Depriving a sick child of medicine is killing them. You want to talk about this? I won’t be the one who flinches.”

“I’ve _been_ that girl, in a sick bed on Io, waiting for the shipment to come in from Earth.”

“And when you were here, in our home, we saved you for nothing. What do you think is going to happen to the children, here, if you do what you're planning?”

“But if I was on Io, you’d have let me die?”

“If you were on Io, you wouldn’t be my problem.” Robin didn’t look away from the viewpane.

Marian watched her hands flex, watched them curl around the controls, and she didn't want this, hated the way Robin’s hands were shaking and hers weren’t.

Robin said, “I’d save you if I could. I’d save you all if I could. But I can’t, and I’m _here_ , helping the people that I can.”

“At what cost?” Marian demanded, waving her empty hand at the viewpane. The other stayed steady, the barrel of her weapon a foot from Robin’s temple.

“The least possible cost, Marian.” Robin’s voice was thick with scorn, unfamiliar, and it was throwing Marian off. “But always a cost.”

The ship shuddered to a stop, anchoring to the asteroid. Marian stepped back, jerking her weapon. “Up. You got an evac suit?”

Robin nodded, standing, and hit the manual override on her belt, the fabric and the plastic visor of the suit surging out to cover her. Marian activated her own, the slight tint of the visor covering her vision.

In that instant of disorientation, Robin reached out for the wall netting, hitting a switch on the dash in the same moment. <Oh shit.>

The ship vented itself and Marian went flying out into the vacuum.

She threw the remote center of her gravity controls to lock onto the asteroid, letting that pull slow her and drag her back to solid rock. She hit ground with a thud she felt with her whole frame. She let out a breath with a huff that fogged up her visor. 

<What the hell was that?> Will demanded. He was marking her location, tracking her vitals and her various proximity sensors, but she could also see him pulling up every file on Robin Lock he could find. 

Marian dragged herself along the surface of the asteroid, fingers digging into crevices. Puffs of dust rose up, catching the light, Marian’s breath echoing inside the helmet of the suit. She reached the golden entrance to the cave just in time to see Robin shove through the shields.

When Marian pushed at the shields herself, they shoved back, almost hurling her back into the void. She dug her fingers into the rock beside the entrance, anchoring herself to that somewhat solid ground. Then she hauled herself out of the cave entrance, pulled out her weapon, and fired it on energy mode. The bolt sung through the shields and hit the shield source behind it.

The pressurized, breathable environment inside the cave exploded outward. 

Papers, folding chairs, mugs flooded out. A crate hit a nearby asteroid and splintered. Marian waited for the rush of depressurization to end, then hauled herself down into the hole.

“You don’t just know something,” Marian said, her evac suit boots thudding on the now barren rock of the cavern, her voice tinny through the suit’s comm. 

Robin was standing at the center of it, tucked into her slightly too-big evac suit, waiting for her. Things were strewn throughout the cavern, smashed and scattered. A few potted plants withered before her eyes, the liquid boiling in their green veins. 

Marian moved closer, shrinking the space between them by strides. “You’re part of their crew, aren’t you? Or the bio-lock wouldn’t have let you in.”

“Marian please, just go,” Robin said. Behind the visor, her hair stood up in clumps. “Don't do this. I don't want to do this.”

“Neither do I,” said Marian, “but this is _what I do_.”

Will barely managed to send a quick pulse of warning before the whole world went blinding, searing white. Marian snapped her visor to block, but it was too late. Her vision swum and her ears rang. She reached out for the cavern wall with one hand, the other still holding the gun pointed at where she’d last seen Robin.

“Shit!” said Robin, and Marian moved her aim to match the sound. More boots thudded on the ground, and Marian wished for Will, in person, another pair of hands on her side. She wished him to be nowhere near this, because she was standing, blinded, and she had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well. She could feel him waiting, silent, on the other end of their line.

“We heard your distress call,” said a familiar, deep voice.

“It wasn’t a distress call, it was a get your butts _out_ call. Don’t you all let me handle anything on my own these days?”

Marian’s eyes were starting to clear up. “Sorry, boss, I misheard it,” said Tuck, light glinting off his evac suit.

“ _I_ didn't mishear it, I just ignored it,” Much said. Marian could see his friendly face now, his eyepatch, and the excavator he was pointing her way. 

“An honest man,” Marian sneered. Much twitched his excavator at her and Marian slowly lowered her gun. A third man, large and silent, unfamiliar, trained a second weapon on her. “ _Helpful_ Robin, and her crew of thieves. I should have smelled it.”

“We’re looking out for our own,” said Robin, soft.

“The rest of the solar system— they’re not your children, so it’s alright to rob them?”

Robin took an involuntary step forward, flushed under her visor. “So I will go to the ends of the earth to save my people. But it is the moral charge of those with _means_ , not those without, to protect the vulnerable. It is every person’s job to protect those they can— and this is it.” She opened her hands, throwing her arms out. She was at least a foot shorter than everyone around her, and those outstretched arms enfolded the whole Belt, every asteroid and spinning piece of detritus. “This is everyone I can protect.”

“So fuck everybody else?”

“So _fuck_ the people who could help everyone else and aren’t.” Robin slashed her hand through the air. Much’s easy aim at Marian didn’t falter. “Fuck the people who leave us to fight for scraps and then call us violent. Don’t stand here on my scrap of rock and condemn me for not watching my children die.”

Marian met her stare for stare, her weapon tight in her hand. She didn’t let herself flinch.

“Rob?” said Tuck.

Robin didn’t take her eyes off Marian. “She’s seen too much.”

Tuck looked away.

“Johnny, can you?”

The last thing Marian saw was the flash of a muzzle. She felt the impact between her upper ribs, to the left of her sternum, and applauded the aim. Will was rising up like static behind her eyes. She sucked in a last breath and sent a last command.

—

When Marian was eleven, she packed a small backpack, a dozen energy bars, and hopped on a ship to the city. She didn’t tell her mother. She wanted to see how far they would let her go.

When Marian was eight, she woke up in a hospital bed but didn’t open her eyes. She kept her breathing even, so they wouldn’t stop whispering at the foot of her bed. She listened to her mother say, “It might be a good investment. Her wavelength scans— if she could make the neuro-bond successfully...”

When Marian was eleven, her mother found her before she’d been gone a full day, and not because Marian hadn’t used every trick she knew to obfuscate her trail. Marian looked up from her book to see her sweeping down the aisles— waistcoat tails flapping, stark red hair cropped short. Marian waited for her mother to reach her.

“Thank goodness,” her mother said, when she did, laying a gentle hand on Marian’s head. “I was so worried.”

Marian heard, “You can’t survive without us. You know that, don’t you?”

Marian heard, “We’re invested in you. Our barcodes are carved into your kidneys.”

Marian heard, “The blood in your veins is mine. I paid for it.”

—

The first intrusion was the beeping— the grating, repetitive sound of an unacknowledged evac suit alarm. It was familiar, like her heartbeat. That rushed in next, as her heart restarted on cue, the rush of blood pushing away the sheltering dark. Light filtered in through her eyelids, pale and harsh, and Marian felt her lungs reinflate.

<Mari, you up, sleepyhead?> Will’s voice, taut, crackled in over their connection. <God, I hate it when you do that.>

<I hate fucking dying, Will.> This was true, but, most of all, Marian hated waking up.

She was on rock, her grav unit holding her down to it, which meant Will had gotten her there while she was out. She pulled herself up to sitting.

<From the maps I’ve got, this asteroid will take you within 100 meters of the main hub in three hours.>

<I’ve got the oxygen for that. Shit, Will.>

Marian put her head down on her knees. As a child, she had always thought space would be cold, but it was sweltering inside her suit with her body generating heat again. She shivered as another healing shock went through her.

<I’m glad they moved your heart down further, last time they replaced it.>

The netting layer below Marian's skin had woven together once she'd woken up, stopping her restarted heart from pumping all the blood outside her body.

<No, they just always get my fucking kidney. I’m gonna need another self-cauterizing one. This is my frickin fourth, Will.>

<Hey, we found them, the bandits. That’s worth something. That’s worth another kidney, even to your mother.>

<Another evac suit, too.> She touched hers gently with a gloved hand. When they'd tossed her cold body into space, her secondary evac suit had activated. They had clearly stripped the first one off her body. The suits were expensive, rare out here— it meant something, that Robin had had one. She should have seen it. 

<They’re gonna send you, next,> she said. She didn’t like it. She wanted to be on the ground, not waiting and listening and feeling danger stalk Will. She wanted to be at risk. 

She wanted to look Robin in the eye one more time.

_Shit._

<Yep. Expect we’ll get marching orders as soon as we file our report.>

Marian lifted her head. <You haven’t filed it yet?>

<Just because you got shot in the kidney doesn’t mean you’re getting out of writing this report, Marian. The nerve on you.> Will’s fingers played frenetically over a pen at his desk, sending it rolling. 

<They’re going to make it a straight kill mission.>

<You IDed the major players,> said Will. <Yeah.>

<I don’t like it.>

<What’s to like?>

<No, I,> she stopped, looking out at the turning rocks. It didn’t feel right. Her palms were itching. Her heart was restarting in her chest. She said, <I think there’s more going on, more we don’t know. I’m worried we’ll miss something important if we do this too fast. You should go in as recon.>

<If we tell them we found the instigators, they're not going to issue an observation order. They want the raids on the shipping lines to stop.>

<Then we don’t tell them.>

<Yeah?>

<Yeah. I’m going to log off, Will.> The asteroid spun slowly below her, dragging her closer to the main hub. <I’ll ping you when I'm on a ship, heading home.>

<It’ll be good to have you back,> said Will, and Marian shut off the line.

Her brain was static. Not the static of Will’s fear for her, just static. Just quiet.

She could feel bits of her body coming alive, waking up. She could feel the damage that long cold drift had left on them.

She watched rocks drift past the one she perched on, dust crumbling into the vacuum. The grand arc of the Belt rose up above and around her, all scattered through with specks of golden light— each one a city, a home, full of doctors and children and thieves.

In the blown-out vacuum of her base, in the back of Marian's mind, Robin threw out both her arms, her small hands, and claimed every life in her reach and no further. The rocks spun, silent. Every part of Marian ached, regrowing, coming alive again.

“I’ll be back,” Marian promised, and no one heard her but the void.


End file.
